I love this band, i love this show, setlist is on fire. nough said

5 stars. march 2000 cheese is top notch.

Wow!!! This is a very good show. The set list is fantastic, it is well played and the recording sounds amazing.

Get this show for the Smile alone (although let's not ignore the end of set 2). Also, SCI always plays at such cool venues.
Dudley's opener.. never get tired of that. BOTWP-- 2:30 intro this time. Pretty good BOTWP, Kang vocals, boring segue into John Hardy. Typical John Hardy, typically good. Billy rambles on about nothing for awhile after it. Then Pygmy Pony, which I love, it's a fairly complicated song. This one has the Billy intro that I don't recall on most other versions. I don't like this Sweet Melinda. As I've said in other reviews, 2000 Sweet Melindas weren't so hot.
This Smile is the best version of this song; they got plenty of practice with it during this late winter/spring tour. Beginning is standard, etc. During the quick Kyle section he uses and organ type effect instead of the piano one, which is cool for its novelty, but I am a fan of the piano myself. However, besides a couple of Little Hands and maybe the 2/19/00 Restless Wind (check out 2/19's Land's End Reprise too), this Smile has some of the best fiddle in any SCI song. It starts around 5:30. Don't let the minuscule error at 5:46 worry you, it's a 12 minute song. Some really low notes in the 6-7 minute range. Fiddle butterflies are fluttering around at 7:19. Then again, only different, at 7:50. Something very cool that I can't explain at 9:15, immediately followed by a repeating high-pitched line similar to 4/7/00. not quite as long as 4/7/00, but 4/7/00 is the 2nd best Smile itself anyway. Then it just takes off. It's over. Oh wait no. It's over. Oh wait, no. Machine gun at 10:23. "I can see you...." at 10:40. Even this part is cooler, as Travis adds cooler harmonized background vocal stuff. Yea. Time to go listen to that again.
Set 2
Right Place, Wrong Time right place right time. Missin' Me is notable mostly for the jam into Water. The Missin' Me itself is over 13 minutes and pretty cool. Then a very heavy jam ensures, I guess I could compare it to Howard if it's like anything they play. Then Water to lighten the mood.
All Waters are good, but none of them have much variation to them, until you get to the recent 2003-04 ones with their techno jams. This one has nothing in particular worth mentioning.
Here it is, the Sand Dollar > Big Mon > Black Clouds > So What > Black Clouds. I actually don't think too much of this Sand Dollar, though, at least not until after 7-8 minutes in. And that Big Mon could not be put at a better time or place, it comes out of nowhere during the post-Sand $ jam and is awesome and a perfect transition between a song like Sand Dollar to a song like Black Clouds. So What.. is that Keith Mosely on bass? After a nice So What with Kang doing his typical cool mando effect there is a 5 minute jam of craziness that if it were a later year would probably be a techno jam. Then back into Black Clouds. I wish they had still done the Billy part in Black Clouds, kind of like the Black Clouds sandwich from 7/20/00, not that that one's any good.
That encore speaks for itself. Oh, acoustic Lester. "Michael Kang playing that entirely too fast" says Billy after Stingray. Incredible. The Pocky is not the best, but it's good, seek out some 1999 Pocky Ways for a better one.
Well this is a 5 star show but not because of the Black Clouds monster. The So What gets 5 stars but the Sand Dollar and Black Clouds get 4. The Smile and encore put this show over the top though.